Mermaid Legend

1984. Japan. Directed by Toshiharu Ikeda. Screenplay by Takuya Nishioka. With Mari Shirato, Kentaro Shimizu, Jun Eto. A cult favorite that deserves to be better known in the United States, Mermaid Legend was the first feature film of the Director’s Company, established in 1982 by nine directors, and the first of several coproductions with ATG. In this wicked and wrathful tale of revenge, a fisherman becomes the unwitting witness to a murder. He discovers that the victim had been mixed up in a corrupt businessman’s scheme to construct a nuclear power plant. When the fisherman himself is then murdered, his wife, a pearl diver, unleashes a torrent of merciless revenge, quite literally becoming a force of nature. Courtesy Toho Distribution. In Japanese; English subtitles. 110 min.

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